Hiott: Austin and the world at your fingertips at mystatesman.com

Last week we rolled out our latest digital product, a premium website that will complement the print edition, our free websites (statesman.com and austin360.com), and the suite of apps and electronic editions we unveiled late last year.

Thousands of readers have popped in since Tuesday to check out MyStatesman.com, and we’ve been asking them to weigh in on surveys, in emails and on social media.

Not surprisingly, the response has been mixed.

As we expected, some people are saying they aren’t willing to pay for something they’ve been getting for free, and that they will jump to other news sites for the same information.

That’s an understandable reaction, but we’re convinced that, while some will never want to pay for their news in the digital age, others will soon find they’re not getting the same comprehensive local report on other sites.

Central Texas has a number of good news organizations, but none of them have as large and experienced a staff as the Statesman. Our staff brings you news you won’t find elsewhere, such as an unprecedented investigation last fall into the deaths of veterans who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan, Andrea Ball’s recent stories on problems at state mental health facilities, and Ben Wermund’s dissection of the school district’s bond planning process last Sunday.

We are also getting feedback from readers who can see beyond the concept of having to pay for a premium experience. They are saying all the things we had hoped to hear about MyStatesman.com: “Sleek.” “Much much cleaner.” “Clean and easy to follow.” “Less cluttered.” Those were a few of the positive comments that came in on our Twitter stream Tuesday as we launched.

We’re hoping people are willing to come to MyStatesman.com for both the content and the uncluttered, curated experience. The editors shaping that site are paying more attention to news hierarchy, as opposed to just the freshest material, although that will be on the site as well. Some of the positive responses we’ve heard so far have mentioned the site’s responsive design, which means it automatically adjusts presentation to fit the device that is being used. So the material is available in a clean format across a desktop, laptop, tablet or smartphone.

The Statesman is hardly alone in deciding that online readers should have to pay for some content. According to the American Press Institute, nearly a quarter of U.S. newspapers have adopted some sort of online subscription method, and more are expected this year. In Texas, the Statesman is joined by the Dallas Morning News, Houston Chronicle, and soon the San Antonio Express-News, as well as dozens of smaller papers, in requiring online readers to pay.

We decided on a multiple website model instead of making statesman.com a paid website so we could still provide breaking news and some other content free to the community. But when the material is exclusive to our staff, or involves more in-depth coverage and analysis, readers will be sent to MyStatesman.com and asked to subscribe once the trial period is over after June 10.

Our print subscribers, who won’t have to pay extra for access to MyStatesman.com, have long attributed value to the content we provide. Money we receive from subscriptions helps to pay the salaries of almost 150 journalists who work on our print and online publications, as well as the infrastructure and technology costs of running our digital products. Now we’re asking our online readers to do the same and pick up a share of the cost of gathering and presenting the news.

Our goal is to work out a business model that will continue to support that newsgathering well into the future as the community’s reading habits evolve. We’re doing that with a continued commitment to the print newspaper that shows up on your driveway, and with a suite of free and subscription digital products that will help ease your news itch when you’re in the office or on the go.

And no matter how we present the news, what we do is still about the credible journalism at the core. Statesman journalists were recently recognized in statewide and national competitions for their 2012 work, and we’re committed to continued improvements.

As always, feel free to tell me how we’re doing at dhiott@statesman.com.